philadelphus

noun

phil·​a·​del·​phus ˌfi-lə-ˈdel-fəs 

: mock orange sense 1

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin Philadelphus, genus name, borrowed from Greek philádelphos "loving one's siblings," from phil- phil- + -adelphos "of siblings (of the kind specified) — more at -adelphous

Note: The genus Philadelphus was introduced by Linnaeus (Species plantarum 1753, vol. 1, p. 470). Linnaeus adapted the name from Philadelphus athenaei ("Athenaeus's Philadelphus"), used as a synonym of Syringa alba (see syringa) by the Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin (1560-1624) in his Pinax theatri botanici (Basel, 1623), p. 398. The "Athenaeus" in question is Athenaeus of Naucratis (late 2nd century A.D.), the Greek author of the Deipnosophistae, a miscellany of historical and literary lore framed as the conversation of participants in a banquet. In Book 5, chapter 29, the description of a kind of myrtle called Philádelphon is cited from a history of the Parthian empire by Apollodorus of Artemita (a work surviving only in references by other authors). A peculiar characteristic of this plant was that the tips of spreading branches would meet each other, join together, and then produce further fresh shoots—hence the name philádelphon "one loving its siblings." (Note that the Egyptian king Ptolemy II was given the epithet "Philádelphos" because he married his sister.) It is unclear why Bauhin associated the plant described by Athenaeus with the mock orange.

First Known Use

1754, in the meaning defined above